Panda

What if Grace made a lopsided crochet Rocky and cuddled it every night.

What if Rocky couldn’t stop making xenonite puppets of his alien friend.

Dr. Ryland Grace was arguably the perfect backup candidate for his mission. Stratt got that right. He had no children, no life partner, no family, not even a dog. All he had was his students and that was enough for him, but that made him replaceable.

Right?

Not only were Grace’s wishes completely ignored, his life and his value as a person was undermined. Simply because he had no one but his students to care for his wellbeing, because he wouldn’t have someone at home waiting for him to come back.

Aroace people deal with similar treatment simply because romance and sex are seen as essential to the human experience, completely disregarding any and all other types of connection. One’s inherent value as a person is not lost when they choose to live life without romantic or sexual relationships. One’s value is simply in existing.

Aroace people know this well, which is why so many have become so attached to Ryland as a character. Many of us see his way of life as the end goal for ourselves, so any one of us would have been seen as just as dispensable, by Stratt and by society as a whole.

Fall into one of 2 (out of many) sexual variations from birth

Identify as the gender associated with whichever of the 2 variations you're in

Conform with the norms and traditional expressions for that gender

Experience sexual and romantic attraction, exclusively towards the opposite gender

Enter into de jure monogamous relationships with partners you feel sexual and romantic attraction towards

Deviation from this list is frequently punished with social stigma, bigotry, denial of certain legal rights or protections, and often violation of bodily autonomy

> disables a new AI feature that was turned on by default

> opens my email

> disables a new AI feature that was turned on by default

> launches a software

Grace is not a robot. Grace is not a child. Grace is not the youngest of a group. Grace is not naive and innocent.